“Kimberrruh, you promised you’d show me,” Zia whines.
“But your stats sheet was so full and high level. I’m embarrassed.” She’s level 50 and I’m super intimidated and realizing she is way too good for me.
“Do you think I would make fun of you? I know you just reached 16, and I want to learn more about you. Specifically because I want to take you on a hunt and I don’t know how safe it is to do that with you.” She leans over onto my side, bringing the hand that was petting my stomach up to my face. “I guess we don’t have to go. I thought it would be a fun bonding activity though.”
Her concern shifts to sadness and, though she might be playing it up, it is super effective.
“Fiiine.” I groan in defeat.
“Huh, for level 16, this is pretty impressive.” Zia comments idly as she scrutinizes my shared panel. “Two attributes went up at the same time? How? Oh. You have an imbalance section. You have that funky thing mom has don’t you?”
I shrug and try to hide my face. “So I’m told.”
“Hmm. She doesn’t talk too much about it, save that it helped her throughout her advancement. Your Talents area is also unusually full.” She leans in close, as though she’s about to kiss me, but stops and stares me in the eyes. “I want your secrets.”
I feel both threatened and aroused? How is this even a feeling I can be having? “I got more than half during my initialization. I guess you couldn’t have done that, as you were born initialized.”
“That better not be pity I hear in your voice.”
“What? No way. You’re level 50, and you were born after me. Age is weird to talk with you with your memory.”
She sighs and pulls me close. “I know I harped on you being tier 1, but with my mother’s mindset when I grew up, tier 1 is all that ever mattered. If you’re a Citizen, your rights are protected. I mostly didn’t want to commit to something with you until you were legally your own person and couldn’t be stolen away from me.”
Hearing that, I’m conflicted on how to feel. Her sense of duty to the law, and her mother, is laudable, but she never seemed as into me as she does now. Is this an indication that she’ll be mercurial about other things? Or is this just a particular thing that grinds against her mind? Or I could be doing the most Kimber thing around and overthinking something because it seems too good to be true.
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“Zee, I’m all for talking about us, but let us get a few days together before picking out a plot for our house.”
She blushes furiously and hides her face in my shoulder. “Okay, I know I can be . . . intense at times. I’m so excited you’re here though.”
The rest of our afternoon fades in and out in a cozy nap, not seeing the sun on my first visit to Astoria before it set for the evening.
***
“How long does it take to get used to the gravity changes when you travel?” I ask, as I tossed myself into the air as I try to walk on Asphodel, a Tech bastion in the Hades system.
“I usually fly on the moons, my aether control is instinctive and delicate.” Penny replies, “It’ll only take a few minutes for you to adjust, about the same time it will take you to get to the first warehouse space on our tour.”
I do some test pacing, and true to her estimate, I stop falling on my face as she comes back out to grab me. Holding the door open, Penny smiles and introduces me to a large cat person.
“Holy fuck, you’re a large cat.” My first interaction with an alien species is swearing at it and not knowing whether to run screaming or to try and pet it.
“Please forgive her, Dzartha, she’s never left Earth before. A promising mind in Alchemy, but brand new to the Supercluster community.”
The large cat purr-chuckles. “Our younglings are the same when they leave the Kepler system. No forgiveness is needed, Empress.” He turns to me and offers a clawless paw. “I am Dzartha, Lead Process Engineer for Astorian Chemical.”
Did she just drop a stack of company names to hold ‘Astorian’ for her businesses?
“I’m Kimber, I make aether-rich coke and gunpowder.” I cup and squeeze the bottom of his paw as he envelops my hand in a shake.
“Well met, youngling. Now, let us discuss what floor area you need and see what utilities are required.
“Okay, I can talk floor area if I get an idea of what kind of throughput we’re looking at.”
We both look at the floating Pixie.
“Three, four hundred kilos a month and see where we’re at?”
“Hmm, first, consider starting your own orchard. Couple hectares at least if you’re planning long term production. The volatility in South America right now is seeing some unsustainable harvesting practices.” Dzartha waits and the Empress raises an eyebrow. “Not the question you asked, got it. Several large hoppers with water and Kerosene, or water and Aether-ethanol that can mash the leaves like a wine pulp. The mashers need to produce a strained effluent to moderate-sized processing tanks to which water and anhydrous acid can be added, or a prepared acid solution. These need to be stirred tanks with fine effluent filters to a drain. This tank is then re-used for another step with more acid and additives, where the effluent is taken to a third set of tanks to add Acetone and Hydrochloric acid to get the final product to precipitate out. The final precipitate then needs to be sent to drying tables, or as I prefer, a moderate heat, low atmosphere shield enclosure.
“I should note, that higher extraction efficiency could be obtained in each precipitate stage with pumping the slurry to filter tables that can be filled with the new solute and then the final stage a shield can be erected for drying.” Tired of talking, I open the Exchange and have a juice delivered to my hand.
Penny and Dzartha chat about a few things for half an hour or so while I walk outside to appreciate the fact I’m on a foreign planet, or moon I suppose. I climb to the top of the building and just sit and stare at the sky. When the door below me opens up, I drop down and walk back inside.
“Sorry, wanted to appreciate the views while I was waiting.” I say, not sorry in the least.
“I have a few questions for you on the build.” I nod at him. And he expands his screen to share a wireframe layout with me. “With exception of the mash, it seems the tanks can be substituted with the filter tables as tanks?”
I see two stacks of six large tables a lot like the combo conveyor I have for gunpowder production. Probably the same base cracker table. “I see two issues so far? You’ll need an intermediate process tank to uniformly add the additives and introduce the new mixtures to the table-tanks evenly. The second, is that two of the processes need rest time to convert, and they would benefit from mixing, so maybe a recirc pump on each table, or a cascading cross-connect on each tower that allows you to use two pumps instead of twelve.”
The furry engineer makes some quick swaps, does some function tests and nods his agreement to the Pixie in charge.
“My turn. Kimber, what stages are appropriate for imbuing the solutes for processing?”
“This goes back to my plantation/orchard comment. I imbue my diffuse mash before I strain it, to a low level so that the resultant slurry is low-level enchanted. Aether-rich leaves would remove that messy step. Otherwise, I recommend large holding tanks for the liquid chemicals that you want to imbue with your coarse sand since you said you have a lot of it. If you want a continuous process, a separate tank for the 60% saturation product you want to end with. If you use Kerosene as the first solute, I recommend against a high saturation of aether. It always explodes on me.”
Penny chuckles at that, as though she knows exactly the pain of projects exploding in your face. We chat around the layout and talk about how to always have product rolling. I post the time requirements for the shared equipment and leave it to the Process Engineer to optimize said process. While he fiddled with some placements and querying vendors, Penny asked me about the drying enclosure design for the final process.
I learn more about shield design than I ever thought was possible, and that if you have the space and aether, you can be as specific as you need to be such as allowing water and water vapor out, but not in, so a regular dehumidifier isn’t necessary.
“Hey, speaking of enchanting and engraving, do you have time to talk about some modules I had questions about? The tooltips aren’t being very helpful,” I ask the famed engraver.
“Sure, but over lunch yes? With inefficient digestion, you really should be careful to eat more snacks than you have been.”
I groan at the admonishment, but am more than happy to have lunch with her. She flies us in her shuttle to the other side of Atropos, to City of Industry where she swears there is a prime restaurant at the top of the agricultural tower.
I end up getting a fried burrito the size of my head. It’s meaty, spicy, and I’m in love with the crunch of it all.
“So, I was hoping to get your advice on a Module called Adaptive spellforms and rune work. It’s paired with two other options for introductory modules on runic and spellforms, adding up to the points I have left.”
“Hmm,” she mumbles, shuffling some menus while she sips her drink. “The description of your class talks about personal empowerment. Adaptive spellforms are the kind that are woven into clothing, or that create set pieces. Cooperative power is how I would explain it. The reason spellforms and runic are separated like this, is that runic is akin to the letters of the spellform language, but the runes are ideas in and of themselves. Small rune groupings can cause powerful effects, but they are static. Spellforms use runic as symbols in an overall coding language, applying simple logic and conditions to direct the aether.
“If Andromeda is offering all of that together, they are telling you something. I’ve never been interested in placing permanent enchantments on a body, but I am extremely familiar with engraving items to cooperate with each other and my symbiotes.”
“Okay, smartie, what’s the easiest way to fly as a normie?”
“Buy a shuttle.” She smirks. I frown. “It really is. Become familiar with piloting a shuttle, and then the simplest spellforms will be a neutral gravity spell and a thrust spell. Sure, you could get away with just thrust, but it’s terribly unsafe. I should know, I used it in my first combat suits. Once I developed Ripple Drive tech, flight is both easy and safe, but requires a master level in three skills to even attempt to complete.”
I slump. “I wanted a shuttle anyway, I suppose. I have to be able to get from Vegas to Bikini Atoll somehow. I heard there are discounts for Gateway travel for Astorian Businesses?”
“There are! Are you planning extra trips to see my daughter already?” She leans forward and grins at me.
I blush and look away. “Well, yeah. I really like her.”
“I’m happy you do. Zia needs a partner in crime and a goal other than ‘get stronger’. You need something to focus on besides work. It doesn’t help that Alchemy is likely also your hobby.”
“It is! I like creating new explosives. I made a moldable high explosive recently. Aether detonated. It’s fun stuff. The main formula is great for breaching, and the other is more useful for welding large things quickly—like concrete and railroad tracks.”
“Oh? Can you send me fifty kilos of the welding stuff? If I can get it to weld hull plates, this could help my Navy with one of our big worries in space fights.”
“You need quick welds in space fights? Aren’t you just dead if the hull is breached?”
“Common misconception, and with modern space suits, decompression won’t kill you. But having the next missile reach the middle of your ship almost certainly will.”
Thinking about being sucked out into the void of space in a functioning space suit, just waiting to die in the inky black makes my whole body shudder in horror. “I think I’ll stick with terrestrial work, thank you.”
She chuckles at me. Thinking for a second then pointing her fork at me. “You know, Justicars are responsible for whole systems, not just a single planet.”
I perk up at her mention of my Track “Is there one I can talk to? I would love to pick their brain about how it all works.”
She sighs and lowers her fork. “Not yet. The Consuls and Governors haven’t bought off on the idea, and the time I promised to wait for them to establish a Justice Department hasn’t lapsed yet.
“How I want it to work, is that there will be a Justicar per incorporated system and they will act as an arbitrator of disputes between two or more governments. If both parties and the planetary Governor disagree with a Justicar’s ruling, they can appeal to the Astorian Supreme Court. If the Council of Governors disagree, they can propose an appeal to me that would need at least two sponsors from my Forum of Consuls.”
“That’s a pretty long road to get you to look at a case.” I muse.
“Right now I review all of them, and there is no appellate court. Disputes will have a chance to have bad judgements reversed, which should make people happy, and the Supreme Court and I shouldn’t be too flooded to review an issue within a month or two. Also, it gives people a chance to have a panel of judges instead of just a series of single people making decisions.”
“Why not do the jury thing?” I ask, only considering the audacity of asking the Empress about her choices.
“A few reasons. Most issues aren’t crimes by an individual, but business disputes. I have access to people who can hear or see the truth as well as you or better, and most importantly, the Imperial justice system should not be the first time a case is heard. A jury of peers can only be fielded locally, and if the local Government doesn’t value jury trials, I’m not taking that responsibility.”
“I’m sorry, Penny, I wasn’t intending to second guess your wisdom.”
She scoffs and waves her hand in dismissal. “It comes up at least every other year, so it’s not a new imposition. Plus, if you are to be a part of the Justice system, it’s important to understand it. Are you interested in reading cases that make it to me?”
“I am, but how long until this system starts?”
She taps a few menus, which I assume will auto-forward her rulings on legal disputes to me. “My governing bodies have two and a half Astorian years to figure it out. Since none of them can get a simple majority let alone the two thirds needed to send the proposal to the next body after ten years of arguing, I don’t see it happening.”
“Wait, Empress,”
“Kimber, I don’t like titles from my friends.”
“Sorry, Miss Astoria.” I stick out my tongue and she flicks a bean at my face and calls me a brat. “Earth doesn’t have a Governor, or representation in the House.”
“Pfft, believe it or not, I forgot about that. I have new systems that are controlled by prospectors, that are in the process of becoming protectorates as well. I should probably fix that global responsibility thing.”
I can’t help but laugh with her and how absurd this situation is.
“You know, I don’t know what’s weirder: Setting up a drug factory with a head of government or dating a princess.”
Her giggle fills me with a pleased buzz in that the Empress of Humanity thinks I’m funny.
